Charlie Hamilton... aka... Chuck Norris-Hamilton... aka... the biggest character on the Algonquin Thunder Men’s Volleyball Team. On the volleyball court, the 6’5 third year left side hitter has been a force this season and was named a 1st team East Region All-star and a provincial champion for the second time in his career. Hamilton also has a CCAA Championship bronze medal from two seasons ago.

Off the court, Charlie is currently enrolled in the script writing program at Algonquin after graduating from Police Foundations, which will absolutely translate into one very unique blog. With a team dynamic that is second to none, this Thunder team is a close knit group that appear to have one, and only one, goal in mind. Another national medal.

So, to help readers get to know the players from "Gonq" a bit better, lets meet the team... according to Charlie that is.

Team Profiles:

Max Larrivee.  Known for his accent and tendency to change singular words to plural. "My wife is pregnant with one sons... and I'm naming him Georges'!" Notorious for yelling "Is that all you got, Daddy!" After making a dig. 
 
Doug Anton. D'Anton. Absolutely nothing to say other then he amps people up like no other and he has the answer to every question.
 
Adam Bryck. Didn't need to make up a nickname for him because his last name is that of either a superhero or someone serving consecutive life sentences. A chronic weight lifter, our coaches gave him the choice of giving up weightlifting and doing yoga, or leaving the team. The season is almost over and he still hasn't made a choice. Has aspirations of one day being able to touch his elbows together.
 
Matthew Cone. Permanently stretched lower lip thanks to Skoal. The all-time record holder for the "Worm Sourjin" game on Facebook. It's true. Go check. Nicknamed Jerry Monday because that's what he told the residence people his name was. 
 
Kyle Wood. Nicknamed "Chewy" because he has a carpet on his chest and stomach. I'm still trying to learn how to do the Chewbacca sound for when he gets kills. Says about 15 words a day more then Cone. 
 
Jonathon Sloane. Nicknamed "Awaj Awan" by a previous years player who could not pronounce "Jonathon" in a French accent. Coach Larrivee's protege, Jonathon has been bred to one day marry coach Larrivee's daughter, who is 19 years his junior. He will likely take her last name. (Jonathan is coach Larrivee daughter’s, who is three, favourite player. She adores him and has been spotted blowing him kisses from the stands at home games. So cute!) Undecided on his next school due to financial reasons, he spends $200 on shirts from Harry Rosen.
 
Mike Childs. Nicknamed "Chili" for no discernible reason. Has a combined weight with Jonathon Sloane of 213 pounds. 
 
Josh Harris. For those people who have seen us play, he is the long haired, left-handed heart throb. He is the only person I know who could go into Halloween, put zero effort into a costume (other then letting his beard go wild), and pull off an honest Jack Sparrow. His nickname, "H-Block," is because of the neighborhood he inhabits. If Ottawa were to have a Jane and Finch, it would be Heatherington.

Gerard Stronks. Though he has many nicknames, the one that seems to stick is "Little Brother." He got stuck with this one because of his habit for saying things that only little brothers say, ex. "Hey you guuuuuys, wait for meeee!" and other such infantile pleas. Wearing his fathers clothes to the Athletic banquet didn't help either. Little Brother's eyes always seem to be swollen shut, giving the impression that he has just woken up, which is usually the case. He lives with Josh and Josh's older brother who is married to Gerard's older sister. I didn't make that up.
 
Brian Batista-Bettencourt. Nicknamed "Drama" because of his habit for following drama or having it follow him around. This Portuguese libero enjoys talking about his old high school days (which were last year) and asking the question, "Did you see that dig/pass?" 
 
Ryan Debruyn. Nicknamed "Dubu," has had tree-trunks for quads since grade eight. Only player I know to have his feet caught in the net but have the ref rule that the ball had hit the floor (and the roof) first. Spends his time reading fantasy novels, yet he's strangely in touch with reality. 
 
Karch Mclean. Named after the greatest beach baller to have ever played, but re-named Garch by Drama to not let it go to his head. The single letter change is surprisingly ineffective. Later re-named Maria because in some lapse of general knowledge and intelligence, Bryck believed that the famous tennis star was named Maria Karch-arova, and not Maria Sharapova. Somehow the name Maria stuck with him. On a road trip, Bryck was eating something that contained 'corn starch,' so that stuck with him for awhile too. 
 
Costa Solanakis. The Greek a.k.a. Zaa. Recently gathered his 400 or so immediate family members to watch a home game. Has his own way of speaking which involves cutting out the first words of a sentence and leaving the listener to decide if what Zaa is saying is a question, or a statement. ex. "Fox my shoes (?)".
 
Kelan Stone. The clown/comic/captain of the team. Constantly makes jokes about how cute Little Brother always looks. Especially after Gerard wakes up, which is often. Has never done a squat or other leg exercise, Kelan chooses the beach workout method of bi's and ab's, which, for some reason, has made him jump higher this year. I hope he doesn't find this insulting because I sleep on his couch a lot. 
 
Adam Gane. Has the most frustrating float serve to pass. Everyone on the team hates it. But not him. He's pretty nice. The poor guy was having a stellar year until he got Mono and had to sit out for the last six weeks. I don't know what else to say. Tough break. Watch who you kiss. 
 
And as for me, I'm your best friend. I'm the lifesaver and the heartbreaker. Yeah, I got accepted to Oxford and Yale. But they don't have volleyball teams. Or Police Foundations. I have a self-proclaimed nickname, "Clutch," which no one calls me. The one that has somehow stuck is "Lilly." One tournament, my mom was watching and cheered "Go Char-Lilly!" Anyways, couple of the guys heard it and won't let it go. 
 
So that's it, that's the whole team.

Day 1.. Travel Day

Woke up this morning at 5 a.m. Fell asleep fully clothed while watching Superman 3. Had to be at the airport within the hour and had limited breakfast options. For the second time in three days I found a shawarma in my jacket pocket which I bought last night on my way home. A shawarma, for those who don't know, is a lebanese version of Pita Pit with 200% more garlic sauce. Struggled through half of it before going downstairs and eating two pieces of plain toast.

Get to the airport, we make our flight and I sit beside Bryck. Within thirty seconds of us being on the plane, he already starts twitching. I get angry and blame it on his lack of yoga. I then think about it and yoga wouldn't have changed anything. Watched the Price is Right and get every item wrong. Little Brother wakes up and looks like he's three years younger. Harris says that Little Brother is basically the ending of Benjamin Button.

Bryck complains that his entire body is stiff. I fall asleep in every position possible. Every part of my neck has a kink in it. I ask the therapist for a message and she says "no."

We stop in Calgary and see J.R. and the Seneca guys. They're all dressed nice and we all look like garbage. Most of us get Manchu Wok for breakfast. Which, for me, mixes with shawarma and spells trouble almost immediately.

The battery life on my laptop is about three minutes, so I spend a half hour looking for a plug. I finally find one at our gate but it's beside the check-in desk so I have to beg the lady to let me sit there and use it. She finally gives in and lets me use it. I plug in and it doesn't work. I end up lying on the floor and try to sleep. On the second plane, I steal Kelan's white hat and he tells the stewardess. She says she's going to make me give it back but she doesn't.

Family feud is on so I watch that and try not to make fun of Little Brother while he's sleeping.

We get to Fort Mac and and drop our stuff off at the hotel, which is beautiful. We go to practice and actually do pretty well considering we'd been traveling for seven hours. After practice my knees get angry at me so I ice them for a half hour.

We go to the hotel restaurant for dinner and it's really expensive, but the buffet looks delicious. I see Steve Pawelczyk and Matt Schnarr (from Mohawk) and we say hi to each other.

After dinner we have our team meeting and go over the plan for the next couple days. Zaa, Kelan and I head back to our room. Some of the guys head to the hot tub, which is colder then the pool. Zaa and Kelan go through the entire hotel looking for a vending machine that works. They finally find one that gives them flat Mountain Dews. They come back to the room and my internet doesn't work. We watch Role Models on my laptop and fall asleep.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for me.

Day 2 - Banquet Day

Woke up at 8:30 to go get food on the way to the gym. Our shuttle doesn't show up so we go to the hotel restaurant and spend 20 bucks on the breakfast buffet that only has water to drink. A new shuttle comes so we pay and get on the bus. We're missing one player and of course it's Little Brother. Apparently the sign at the cash that said "We do not accept debit," was unseen by him. This doesn't surprise us though with the sign being over four feet in height and his swollen new born baby eyes allowing very few things into his vision.

We finally get to the gym and have a pretty sweet practice. Ryan jumps about 40 feet in the air on a pipe ball with no block and hit's it on the "T" in position 5 (basically in 4 though). Little did he know that Bryck was on his way to turtle in the other direction, but because of his slow pace, one of his arms was still stuck out and he managed to dig it perfectly. The rest of the rally is a blur to me because I was on the ground laughing. The practice was littered with things like this which helped keep it light and fun. Little Brother got blocked close to 100% of the time.

After practice my knees are furious with me so I fix some massive bags of ice on them. The shuttle isn't supposed to come for an hour so we order a 15 seater taxi van, that doesn't show up. While we're waiting, we watch Little Brother struggle to peel an average sized orange, which is close to the size of his head. Kelan watches the entire peeling process, mimicking what he thinks Little Brother is saying as he's peeling... Poor little turnip. Looked so cute attacking that orange with both hands. He laughs at all the jokes too though. He's got a great sense of humor.

So after waiting 45 minutes for the taxi van, a shuttle shows up, so we take it. We get back to the hotel and relax all day, waiting for the banquet. Zaa dresses like a mob boss and Little Brother wears an inside out American Eagle dress shirt, hiking pants, and his old runners. Max inquires as to why he looks so homely. Little Brother laughs it off and doesn't answer.

At the beginning of the banquet, there is trivia for the first table to get to eat. The question is how do you spell Karch Kiraly's last name. Karch Mclean stands up immediately, but spells it wrong. I flip out. We end up being the last team to eat and I'm still holding a grudge over Garch Maria. Like, two "L's?" Obviously there's 1. And he was named after the guy! Come on.

The banquet is hosted by Dan O'Toole from TSN Sports Centre, who does an amazing job. Laughed like it was my job but got angry every time I thought of how Garch spelt the last name wrong. Coach of the Year went to the Keyano coach, as did Player of the Year. Haven't seen the guy play, but have heard nothing but amazing things about him.

The banquet ends and we find Bryck picking through the remains of the desert table. Max goes off for his coaches meeting and the rest of us have video sessions with D'Anton. We finish and Zaa and Kelan go off to find the vending machine from last night with the flat drinks. They come back a couple minutes later and apparently someone changed the prices for the drinks. They go back with exactly enough change but now the machine only accepts certain coins. They finally manage to get something and come back to the room.

Zaa keeps saying the phrase "Hype it up." Apparently, if you mess with him, he will "Hype it up." I Wikipedia'd it but didn't get a whole lot of help. We watch "I'm On A Boat" by Andy Samberg on youtube about 20 times. Each time it gets funnier. The only thing on tv worth watching is "Disorderly Conduct," so we watch that for awhile. We talk about the game tomorrow and then watch I'm On A Boat again. The night winds down and we look forward to the game tomorrow morning. And what the vending machine will be up to tomorrow night.

Day 3 - Game Day

So, woke up, did the usual early morning practice and came back for a sweet breakfast brunch by the hotel. I'm writing this blog a bit late so I can't think of all the funny and cute things Little Brother did, but there was a lot.

We head to the gym and have a good warm-up. We play UFV and they play amazing. What can I say, they beat us and they deserved it. I don't want to bring up the two calls that the ref blew for us at the end of the 3rd set, but I guess I just did. And regardless, UFV beat us hands down the first two sets anyway. Their coach had them very well prepared and we did the best we could to exploit their down falls. All in all it was a pretty mediocre performance by us, but again, respect to UFV for playing their game and playing it well. Zaa got Player of the Game. This means he got a water bottle, a miniature foam buffalo and a digital camera. Yeah, that's balanced. The digital camera is super nice and our whole team wants to be players of the game now. (I'm bribing Zaa to set me all the balls).

We all have our heads down after the game, but we cheer up when we see the 40 or so elementary school students who were cheering us on while wearing plain white shirts that have Algonquin written all over them. We sign their shirts, thunder sticks and miniature volleyballs. I can't speak for everyone on the team, but I definitely got cheered up getting asked for my autograph. This one little girl asked me to sign the front middle of her shirt, which made me feel awkward so I asked if I could just sign her shoulder.

We take pictures with them and then head back to the team room for the post game talk. Talks for these occasions are always hard to listen to and I'm sure they're harder to give. But D'Anton chips in at the end and blows our minds with a speech that could have been in a movie. We all get pumped and look forward to our game tomorrow.

We then head to the player lounge where the college has an amazing set up of soup, chili and sandwiches. After eating, we watch Seneca play Grant MacEwan. Seneca starts off slow, but ends up winning the third and fourth set. Seneca plays really well but Grant MacEwan ends up winning the fifth set. This is disappointing but Seneca should be proud of themselves giving G.M. a run for their money.

We head back to our hotel and I fall asleep for a couple hours. When I get up, almost everyone has headed to the gym to watch the games. I clean up and catch the shuttle to the gym. I'm the only one on the shuttle and the driver and I sit in silence. The most awkward 20 minutes of my trip. I get to the gym and sit with the guys. We watch the Player of the Year, Alwyn Piche, rip up balls against Camosun. He's unreal. Someone brings up the blogs I've been doing and Little Brother chirps in talking about how they're all about him. I basically agree. He says "Yeah, well what are you going to write about tonight? I haven't even done anything wrong today." We all laugh cause he says it super cute. Kelan asks how he got so cute and he says, "Years of practice." But he tries to say it in a cute way, which ruins it.

We head back to the hotel and have a meeting about tomorrow's game. We decide on the 8 a.m. practice and we plan on staying there until our game. Awaj Awan comes in asking if anyone wants a Diet Coke. Apparently, a different vending machine in the building gives out free drinks. Everything about this hotel is weird. We don't go back to our usual vending machine because we have no money. Probably better that way. We fall asleep watching Mantracker. OLN is the sickest channel on television. Provincial finals re-match tomorrow.

Day 4

I’m On A Boat. Woke up to that on Kelan’s phone as our alarm. Zaa once again refuses to let his sleeping partner get any sort of warmth over the course of the night. Head to the gym for our usual 8 a.m. practice this morning. On the ride, we re-name Chewy to Ron Burgundy, because of his hair. Harris hears this, looks at Chewy, and let’s out his hilariously original laugh which is like a machine gun of high pitched yells. Do our run through of Seneca’s usual tactics. Little Brother falls into the ball basket in his attempt to beat up Kelan. Ends up getting beaten up by Kelan… and the ball basket. Time to invest in some more Second Skin. While playing threes, someone hits a ball at Bryck, and he punches it.

After practice we go to this place called the Pantry for breakfast. Zaa and Kelan order the cracked pepper barbeque bacon burgers with “endless fries.” I didn’t think they were allowed to serve that much beef before 10 a.m. Little Brother accidentally orders the Seniors Special. This contains 1 egg, 1 piece of bacon, one slice of toast, one pancake, and one sliver of orange. The little turnip almost finished it all. His hair sticks up while he’s eating and I pet it, freaking him out.

After we eat breakfast, we walk the two kilometers back to the gym, or “just across the streets” in Max’s language. When we get back from our two kilometer death march, Ron Port is standing in literally the exact same place as we left him.

We start getting ready for the game and do some serve receive. I pull Little Brother out of the passing rotation and shank every ball that comes to me. Do our warm-up, and we play them. We’re all angry from our loss the night before and it shows in how we play. It’s hard to describe this and not sound like I’m bragging, so I’ll just say we won. They did play a good game though. Awaj hears that Xoe (Max’s daughter) is watching the live feed so he serves a million aces (probably like 5 or something). Gane’s gets his first kill of 2009 after being out with mono for six weeks. Drama basically digs everything that comes near him.

After the game we sign more autographs for our amazing fans. A little girl comes up to me and literally did the same thing as the girl yesterday. Once again I ask her if her shoulder is okay, which she is fine with. The pen I use is awful, so after about 15 seconds I give up and just write “ #7. ” In all the commotion, Kelan almost signs Little Brother’s shirt. Harris gets a nose bleed and fights it off for a good 10 signatures. We get a picture with them and I ask Little Brother if he wants to sit on my shoulders.

We hit the change room and have our post game talk that lasts about 30 seconds. I ice my knees and we hit the player’s lounge for some more amazing food courtesy of Keyano College. We basically get treated like royalty by them. Back to the hotel where Ron nearly makes the same wrong turn for the 10th time. We get to the hotel and Zaa collapses on the bed for three hours. Kelan and I find Dennis The Menace: The Movie on some channel and watch that thinking the entire time about Little Brother. We decide that we have to get Little Brother a pair of over-alls. I hit the hot tub with some of the guys and we talk about Dubu’s hot tub at home. We hang out in Drama’s room for awhile. Cone has three pairs of the same grey sweat pants. Drama argues with Little Brother (who is wearing his moto-cross jersey) about whether X-Box or PS3 is better. Drama says that he used to test games for X-Box, as if we’d all be blown away and jealous of him.

We get cleaned up to head to the gym to watch more volleyball. We take our time walking to Ron Port’s pimped out Ford Flex. He gets antsy and starts pumping Arab Money to get us in the car faster. We all run in and he turns it off.

We watch more volleyball and then get food. On the way to get food, some of us are walking faster than Max. He doesn’t like this. So he hypes up his home town of Rimouski because apparently they are the ’92 silver medalist’s for Olympic speed walking. No one cares. We come back to watch Max’s old team beat the home team which features the Player of the Year. Cone sees him rip a serve and says “Whoooa, Billy Jean.” Which has nothing to do with anything. Max’s old team wins, so tomorrow we play Keyano. Kelan stresses out because the guy he’ll be hitting against has “tennis rackets for hands.” We shuttle back to the hotel and have our team meeting. Max tells us how big of an “opper-chune-ity” tomorrow is. He says it like that twice in the same sentence. I stifle my laughter and look around, seeing that everyone is doing the same. Max makes Bryck stand by the doorway because Bryck farts on Max’s pillow. Bryck says that Max will probably wake up with pink eye.

We wrap up the meeting and Bryck calls our therapist “onion” instead of Anya.

Head back to the room and watch women’s wrestling until we find Halloween 3 on Space. It sucks but there’s nothing else to do.

Final Days

Don’t practice this morning, so it’s a nice little sleep in. Wake up for breakfast around nine. Hit the sweet buffet and pay a ridiculous amount of money once again. Little Brother can barely see what he’s eating cause his little pup eyes are swollen shut. Cute little thing.

We shuttle to the gym for 10 and have a quick run through of the Keyano guys. The buffet disagrees with me, of course, so my stomach gets angry at me and I miss most of the meeting. I won’t go in to details.

Have a sick warm-up, spending like 10 minutes using the foam roller on my I-T band. For anyone who has watched us warm-up, it’s this big, black, cylinder shaped foam thing. Like I was saying, if you’ve seen us play, I’m usually rolling around on it.

So I finish rolling around and my knees are feeling amazing. Feel like I could touch well over 10’6. Which is big time for me. Yeah, prolly gonna go pro next year. Crack A Bottle is playing by Eminem and Zaa doesn't know any of the words, so he basically sings the words, "So waddle waddle, let your body waddle, don't act like a waddle waddle cause you just hit the waddle!"

So, we play Keyano, who has the Coach and Player of the Year. We do our usual serve receive warm-up and their coach comes up and tells us, “Get on your own side.” Him and his team then leave the gym for like five minutes for what we think is a pre-game talk. We all stand around not knowing if we should go back, but we decide against it. They finally come back and start using “their” court. Zaa starts us off huge with some big serves. We use our size and end up blowing them out in the first set. Gane is officially back from mono. Second and third sets are tight, but we play our game and focus on our first contacts. We shut down their big guy, or at least do our best to. We win the game and get excited for the bronze medal match.

Not a big after game talk. The coaches are happy with our performance but know that we need to play better to beat Camosun. Bryck shows us his under hand softball pitch with a mini v-ball and it nearly puts a whole in the wall.  I ice the crap out of my knees and go grab food. I eat about eight sandwiches and my ice bags leak everywhere. We watch Seneca play the New Brunswick guys and cheer on “Supper-beans” and the rest of the Sting. We then hit the team room and prepare for the bronze.

Stomach burns up again so I don’t hit the team room washroom, out of courtesy. Come back and we go over the Camosun strategies, which our amazing coaches, who have had next to no time to decode, have gone over with great detail.

We go into the game feeling really good, but come up somewhat flat. It takes us two sets to get in to our groove but we finally do and play some of our best volleyball of the tournament. We go into the 4th set feeling even better. We start off big and keep pushing and then, well, a questionable call in our favour gets given to them by our coach. After the call, they go on a run and tie it up. Our team loses focus and can’t get back on track. We lose the game and the bronze. Not a lot of people would do what Max did. But that’s who Max is. He’s a classy guy and he’s honest to the bone. I don’t think there’s one of us on the team that would have given them the call. But to Max, it was the right thing to do. I won’t always agree with what he did, but I’ll always respect him for doing what none of us would have.

We get back to the team room with our heads down. There’s not a lot of talking going on, so we just sit. Doug gives us a speech that makes losing feel better than winning. Our chins eventually go up and we start talking and laughing again. It’s corny to write and probably even cornier to read, but after that game (and the end of the season) I feel like everyone in that team room was family. We sacrificed all of our time and energy to be together and be the best we could be as a team. In my three year college career, this is the closest team I’ve been on. I realize this as I sit in the team room icing my knees. There’s only about five minutes before people start leaving to get food and whatever, so I try to cherish the last couple minutes we’ll all be together. Jon, Ryan, Gane, Kelan… maybe me… are all headed to bigger and better things and it’s hard to imagine not practicing with them every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. The road trips, the home games, Little Brother’s cute little smudged up morning face, are all things of the past now. I’m thankful for all the time I’ve spent with everyone on this team and won’t forget all the good (and bad) inside jokes and stories that have accumulated over the past seven months.

Kelan and Gane, you guys have been with me since first year and have been closer than family. Kelan, you can always make laugh. Gane, I hate your float serve.

Awaj, you came in last year as a 6’9 dancing skeleton. Now, all the big universities want you. We’re all proud of how far you’ve come.

Garch Ave Maria Karcherova, I still can’t believe you got the name wrong.

Bryck, not sure why, but everything you say makes me laugh.

Little Brother, you can’t stay in Neverland forever.

Josh H-Block Harris, Volleyball isn’t for us. Hawaii is calling and they need a new surfer with a manager. I told them I’d talk to you about it first.

Cone, the world needs to meet you. Put yourself out there.

Kyle Chewy Kinger Wood, the few things you said this year made me laugh. You are our team’s serving specialist.

Ryan Dubu, what’s there to say, you’re an All-Star. If you write a fantasy novel, I might read it.

Mike Chili Childs, the Senators are terrible. This isn’t aimed at you, but I know you’re reading this with Dean. When we needed you, you were there. You took Gane’s spot when he was out and totally stepped up to the challenge. Your calves are thicker than your quads. 

Drama Batista, you brought some much needed drama to the team. Every time you came out with us, the next morning there would be a story to tell. Apparently, I was an accomplice in your “attempted murder.” My bad.

Zaa, we came in here as rookies not knowing what to expect. You didn’t know how to set and I didn’t know how to do anything. You’ve been my best friend and right hand man ever since.

Max and Doug, you guys made me the person and player that I am today (and I mean that as a compliment, not an insult). Everything that I’ve accomplished in the last three years, I owe to you two.

Ok, enough semi-mushy stuff. So I leave the team room with the guys and start hurling food into my mouth. I burn my tongue on chicken noodle soup immediately. I leave the players lounge and start watching the finals. The UBC coach comes up to me and introduces himself. He asks me what my plans are for next year and I say that they are fairly up in the air. I’ve never thought of myself as a good player but he says that he thinks I’d fit in well on his team. He gives me a recruitment package and I get excited. Max and Doug talk with us for awhile and then the coach heads off to grab a flight. I sit with the team and watch Limoilou play Grant Macewan.

Limoilou doesn’t play their best game and Grant Macew-WON ends up taking it in 4 sets. Big upset.

We head back to the hotel and clean up. We have our team meeting to discuss what the evenings plans will be. We decide to walk down to the strip mall and get food. On the walk, Max and Awaj decide that it’s too cold so they run ahead. Maybe to discuss wedding arrangements :). We get to this pizza place and find a karaoke lounge next to it. We go in and listen to some country guys sing some country songs and then decide that we’re better. Drama throws on “Turning Japanese” which, for some reason, we all know and it translates into an amazing karaoke song. Cone adds the name “Kyle” to every word he says. Which makes less sense than it sounds. Bryck does a weird shoveling dance move which doesn’t look good to country… or any kind music. Harris joins him and then Bryck goes to place an order. As Bryck walks, I see that he still has the size sticker still on his jeans. Harris is the only one on the dance floor for several songs, but he doesn't care. The guys from the pizza place come in and they decide to head to Cowboys, the big hangout in Fort Mac. We all decide to stay and keep singing. I see the biggest belt buckle I’ve ever seen on a short cowboy. Little Brother acts like he’s 16, and we make fun of him. He counter’s our insults by waving his hands around and complaining. Max mimics Little Brother’s hand gestures and laughs forever. Harris, Kelan, Zaa and me sing a quartette of Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis. None of us know the words, but we try to act like we do by not reading the screen. We sound terrible but don’t get booed, just stared down.

Max stands up and sings Walking in Memphis. He really gets in to it and he does it really well. About halfway through, some of the Limoilou guys come in and see him singing. They all burst out laughing (he used to play for them back in the day and I’m sure the coach has told them stories about him). We dance and sing with the Limoilou guys and they’re all super chill to party with.

Some French girls sit at our table and Bryck sits with them and the Limoilou guys tell him funny things to say to them. The girls laugh and Bryck kisses one of them on the hand. I’m supposed to sing Space Oddity and The Scientist, but the lady controlling the songs is biased so all of the regulars get to sing their country songs. We head back to the hotel and hang with the Limoilou guys for awhile. Drama takes a swim. We head back to our rooms and fall asleep around five. Wake up at 11 for our last $20 breakfast. There’s eggs benedict, so I eat a bunch of those, which I pay for later.

We get on the shuttle and get to the airport for our one o’clock flight. I realize that I left the only five movies that I brought in my hotel room. We end up in Calgary and our flight to Ottawa is delayed. Everyone is “JUST…” This gives me plenty of time to get Manchu Wok and completely destroy my stomach. Only three of the four plugs at our gate give out power, so we all fight for them because we’re losers and want to sit on the facebook homepage and hit refresh every 15 seconds.

Our flight comes and we say goodbye to Alberta.

- Charlie